Most of our readers have heard of the term Deux ex machina. It is Latin for, “god from the machine.” It refers to:

. . . a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object. Depending on how it is done, it can be intended to move the story forward when the writer has “painted himself into a corner” and sees no other way out, to surprise the audience, to bring a happy ending into the tale, or as a comedic device
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina

This is only one of the dangers involved when God is a character in the story. But there are many more. How many, you may ask? Here are three that come to mind.

Difficulty establishing tension

Related to Deux ex machina, if the reader knows God is going to save the day at some point, it is hard to build much real danger for the protagonist. Instead, tension is built more by inner conflict within a character arc in most cases.

It can also be increased by God not saving the day when He’s expected to. Like Josh Whedon kills off a main character occasionally to keep the viewer guessing whether others will survive, this leaves the reader not sure whether God will or won’t jump in.

To be honest, though, this is a problem with a majority of novels. We know, in most cases, the good guys are going to win somehow. Despite all he goes through, we know Bruce Willis is going to survive and win in a Die Hard movie. Yet, we still find ourselves on the edge of our seat watching one.

God comes across as arbitrary

I’ve been accused of this one. It is inherent in depicting God who has said,

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith Jehovah. (Isa 55:8 ASV)

In real life God’s actions can seem arbitrary, even though we trust He is doing what is best. An author can know why God is doing all He is doing in the story, but how can he let the reader in on it? Either God explains Himself to characters, which is not true to life, or we get internal monologue from God’s “brain,” which collides with the above verse. Not too many authors are crazy enough to even attempt the later.

So even if there is rhyme and reason in the author’s mind, it is near impossible to convey that in a story without venturing into even more dangerous territory.

My God would never do that!

The God we get from reading a story will frequently not mesh completely with our understanding of Him. There is a conflicting theological picture painted we don’t like. There are several levels to this.

One key to keep in mind is the Bible may be inerrant, but authors are not. Due to human limitations, authors are never going to paint a perfect picture of God in their novels. Even with the best of intentions, we can get it wrong, intentionally or unintentionally, and even promote heresy on occasion that we didn’t intend to portray.

On one level, there are the differences in theology about God among Christians. A Calvinist author and a Wesleyan author are not likely to portray God’s words and actions toward man the same way. One author’s depiction of Hell may not match another’s. So some disagreement is to be expected.

On another level, sometimes the author inadvertently portrays God in a manner even he doesn’t agree with, and never saw it in editing. We are, after all, limited humans. Sometimes messages are conveyed we didn’t intend.

Yet there are also authors who believe and intend to “teach” through their writings a view of God that is heretical, outside the traditional bounds of Christian understanding. A Mormon isn’t likely to portray Jesus, whether directly or allegorically presented, as being equal to the Father in substance.

So any author who has God as a character is always in danger of alienating readers by what God does or doesn’t do or say.

I should point out, that the statement, “My God would never do that,” is problematic. One, we don’t own or define what God will or won’t do. He does. Two, it reflects a “God in a box” mentality, leaving us insensitive to God’s efforts to teach us something new.

Sometimes we need to give authors the benefit of a doubt, realize this is fiction written by a fallible human being, and use it to teach what God is really like instead of threatening to burn books, figuratively or literally.

What are other problems you see when God is a character in a novel? Where do you draw the line on what is acceptable?

This week the media began their expected tribute to President John F. Kennedy who was assassinated November 22, 1963. Two other famous men died that same day–both writers. The one was Aldous Huxley and the other, C. S. Lewis.

I’ve asked the question over the years, which of the three will history remember as having had the greater impact? Of course, that’s the kind of thing no one can truly quantify. But as much talk as there is this week about President Kennedy and how “everything changed” after he was killed, I don’t recall a great deal of discussion about his ideas or influence over the past ten years. Some.

Often politicians invoke President Kennedy’s memory as part of their election campaigns and the media will mention “Camelot” in wistful tones or Marilyn Monroe’s birthday song to him with knowing winks. And of course there are the conspiracy theory discussions. But President Kennedy’s influence?

Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, has fostered even less discussion though his dystopian fiction fits in quite nicely with the high profile young adult dystopians of the past few years. He also embraced such ideas as Universalism, pacifism, mysticism, and “Vivekananda’s Neo-Vedanta” or Neo-Hinduism which has seeped into mainline western thought.

I certainly don’t want to take anything away from the impact that President Kennedy or Aldous Huxley had, but C. S. Lewis’s legacy seems to grow year after year.

Though the subject of their admiration was, among other things, an Oxford scholar, a literary critic, a poet, a writer of more than 30 books and countless shorter pieces and speeches, a war veteran, and even a broadcaster, to many it is Lewis’ contributions as a masterful Christian apologist that most endears him to readers and endures a half-century after his death. He made the complex simple and the brain-bending breezy. An estimated 200 million copies of his books are in print, and today they continue to sell about 2 million copies annually. (“C.S. Lewis: Even 50 years after death, his work deeply inspires,” Christian Science Monitor, emphasis added)

Chicago Tribune columnist Cal Thomas has weighed in on the question, and he sizes up the influence of these men the same way I do:

Of the three, it was Lewis who not only was the most influential of his time, but whose reach extends to these times and likely beyond. His many books continue to sell and the number of people whose lives have been changed by his writing expands each year. (“Kennedy, Huxley and Lewis”)

Certainly the Narnia movies, though a disappointment to true C. S. Lewis fans, sparked a renewed interest in Lewis’s fiction, but his reputation has never stood upon his storytelling alone. I personally have loved his fiction most, but I appreciate his non-fiction greatly.

Of his works, my favorites are Till We Have Faces; The Great Divorce; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; The Last Battle; Screwtape Letters; Surprised by Joy. Of those, only the last is non-fiction.

By today’s style of writing, Lewis’s fiction fails miserably. He writes in the omniscient point of view, uses far too many adverbs, and tells more than he shows. Yet his stories resonate with truth, and consequently they stick. In fact, for me, they have revolutionized my understanding.

I came to see my relationship with God in a different way after reading about Aslan and his relationship with the kings and queens of Narnia. I grasped the reality of heaven like I never had before after reading The Great Divorce, and I recognized the way temptation draws me away from God upon reading The Screwtape Letters. Mostly I apprehended to a greater degree God’s love and sacrifice and demand for our surrender to His way.

And of course, Lewis showed me what a writer could do with fiction. He made me want to put truth in stories so that readers would grasp profound realities because of a simple line (E.g., the overly used but nonetheless profound quote from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver […] “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” [excerpt from Ch. 8: “What Happened after Dinner”]).

Noted scholar Clyde Kilby concluded his book Images of Salvation in the Fiction of C. S. Lewis with an insightful observation about the truth Lewis made pivotal in his stories:

throughout all of Lewis’s Christian works we find a great difference in eyesight–or better, spirit-sight–between the saved and the unsaved. How very blind poor Orual was, and that for most of a lifetime. How well Psyche saw, even from early childhood. How clearly Lucy Pevensie saw always, and how blind was her sister Susan, even in the very presence of Aslan. How blind were all but one of the passengers on the bus from hell to heaven. How eternally clear sighted was the Green Lady and how myopic Weston. How often blind are the so-called great in any age and how seeing the humble and quiet of spirit. Lewis’s insight into this difference between sight and blindness is no less explicit than that presented in the Bible itself.

Even his poetry is filled with these themes. Here’s a sonnet of his centered on this truth:

The Bible says Sennacherib’s campaign was spoiled
By angels: in Herodotus it says, by mice–
Innumerably nibbling all one night they toiled
To eat his bowstrings piecemeal as warm wind eats ice.

But muscular archangels, I suggest, employed
Seven little jaws at labour on each slender string,
And by their aid, weak masters though they be, destroyed
The smiling-lipped Assyrian, cruel-bearded king.

No stranger that omnipotence should choose to need
Small helps than great–no stranger if His action lingers
Till men have prayed, and suffers their weak prayers indeed
To move as very muscles His delaying fingers,

Who, in His longanimity and love for our
Small dignities, enfeebles, for a time, His power.

(from Poems, C. S. Lewis, edited by Walter Hooper)

Just for fun quiz:

1. Which of Lewis’s books did he dedicate to J. R. R. Tolkien?
2. To whom was Screwtape writing?
3. Which of Lewis’s books is his spiritual autobiography?
4. In the quote above from Dr. Kilby, he points out Lewis’s use of sight as a metaphor for spiritual understanding. Name at least one other character besides Susan from the Narnia books who suffers from blindness to Aslan’s reality.
5. How different do you think Lewis’s fiction would be if he had never become a Christian?

Feel free to leave your answers in the comments below. 😉

What impact has C. S. Lewis had on you as a reader or as a writer? Are you more familiar with his fiction or nonfiction? Which books are your favorites? Have you read his poetry?

Escapist. Nonsensical. Childish. Delusional.

Those are the words that come to mind when many people think of reading fairytales and fantasy. Far-off worlds full of mythical creatures and over-blown heroism. Dragons, swords, magic, fairies, and epic battles. What could be further removed from reality . . . right?

For the longest time, when asked what I was reading, I would list off my most recent historical fiction or non-fiction read, and skip right over the fantasies and fairytale re-tellings that were my true favorites. What would people think if they knew a grown woman loved reading those types of books more anything else?

But one day I decided to take a close, honest look at my hesitancy, and I found that this tactic stemmed not from what others thought of me, but from the misguided embarrassment that I myself felt. As an inward person, an analyzer, the question I asked myself next came very naturally: Why do I love reading fantasy so much? And not only as an adult, but as a Christian?

I knew down deep the answer couldn’t really be what I feared–that my thoughts, emotions and tastes were childish. But if not, then what was the reason . . . the deeper reason?

In his book The Sandman, Neil Gaiman says, “Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.”

Fairytales promote a desire for . . . other. Not a desire for fire-breathing dragons to terrorize your city block, or a desire for fantastical battles to happen on your front lawn, but a desire for “something beyond.” Children’s Christian fantasy writer and theologian C.S. Lewis argues that “this desire for something beyond does not empty the real world, but actually gives it new depths.”

Fantasy transforms our perception of reality. But what the best fantasy does, in my opinion, is to transform it into something truer, and more real, than it was to begin with. When I am immersed in a world of fairytale, its characters, its whimsy, its dangers and its heroes, I see each as a sort of echo from my own heart. An echo of the things I know to be good and pure and just and true and lovely from my own experience, from life itself, and even from God’s word.

Let’s imagine that you take a virtue such as bravery or love or forgiveness and wrap it in a shining fairy world. Go ahead–bury it deep within, mix its essence right into the story’s very structure and life. Now–give the story to someone whose heart has ignored that virtue, shelved it away in a dark, cobwebbed corner of her heart. She will plunge into the story, drawn in by its many facets and adventures. Then she will stumble, as if by accident, upon something – see something golden and true flit out of the corner of her eye.

And just like that, she’s found it–she’s found the hidden virtue, the truth beneath the illusion. And the finding of that one simple truth will be more amazing and delicious than if it been handed to her on a golden platter in broad daylight. When something is found in this way, and its unexpected whisper is heard through the pages of a story, the truth of it can resound stronger and further than a shout, or a sermon, or a real-world book with a supposed real-world message.

Fairytales and fantasy stories stand out in shocking relief from the dullness of life. The best and most thoughtfully told ones offer a new, bright way to discover something that our hearts have known all along. Maybe it’s a discovery of forgiveness, faith, or bravery. Maybe it’s seeing God in a brand new way.

I have often felt, when reading fantasy (Christian fantasy even more so) that the story holds a light. For many years I felt that light was shining into the stories, showing me their secrets. Now I know that the light comes from the words of the stories themselves, and it shines outward, into me, if I allow it. A light that shows us new things is a wonderful thing. But a light that shows us the great things within ourselves that have been there, hiding in the dark, all along . . . now that’s a light I will go to some trouble to find.

Jesus Himself told fairytales of a sort; the Bible calls them parables. He knew that sometimes a direct message falls on deaf ears or sinks and disappears into a jaded heart. He knew that the truth laid out flat is not always the path to true understanding and wisdom.

And He understood that a story, spun with imagination and deep meaning, can lead the lost home again.

I no longer worry when someone gives me an odd look after I confess to reading fairytales, or when I tell them I write fantasies. I just breathe a silent wish that they will one day see fairytales for what they truly are: not stories set apart from reality, but ways of taking life’s tired and faded truths and uncovering the vibrant colors hiding just beneath.

– – – – –

Ashlee Willis is a writer of Christian fantasy for young adults. Her first book, to be published by Conquest Publishers, will be out within the next year. She is a mother, wife, and daughter of God. Among her favorite authors and greatest influencers as a child (and still!) are C.S. Lewis, Richard Llewellyn, George MacDonald, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joan Aiken, Mary Stewart, and Meredith Ann Pierce. When she isn’t writing, she can be found walking through the woods, catching bugs and frogs with her young son, or with her nose buried in a good book (a fairytale, of course!). She blogs about fantasies and fairytales at The True Fairytale. You can also find her on Twitter at @BookishAshlee.

Mirkwood murkening.

By now the “haunted forest” setting seems cliché in fantasy and even contemporary stories. Yet it was already a well-known fairy-tale trope by the time Tolkien used it, and in my view the fantasy master does well preserving this theme yet taking it into an original direction.

Remember in the book when Legolas and “Tauriel” fought the spiders? (This prematurely made and marketed Lego playset was released last year.)

Viewers of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey last year know that this new trilogy-starter showed one of Middle-earth’s dark forests, Mirkwood, earlier than expected. At least we caught sights of it outside the tree-cabin of forest-wizard Radagast the Brown — an addition to The Hobbit book but not to the whole story as Tolkien later added to it.

Similarly, the film will likely explore more about how Mirkwood came to be corrupt. Like all of Middle-earth, that place was not originally bad. But wicked corruption from a dark mysterious source will form a mystery in the film version (hint: Sauron’s behind it all).

The idea of an “evil place” or a corrupted geographic locale is common in stories. But this idea brings with it some baggage that many Christians often apply to fantasy stories as a genre, as well as many other “corrupted” places or objects. We tend to treat these things as “infected” by evil, rather as objects that have become corrupt because of outside human influence. By contrast, how does Scripture address the nature of evil corruption? How does it start? How does it end? How does sin affect things in the world, including places, and how does Christ’s redemption of human beings in turn begin to redeem the world (Rom. 8)?

Chapter 8: Flies and Spiders

1. Read chapter 8, pages 131 (they walked in single file) to 133 (uncanny darkness).
2. Why do so many stories include the idea of a “dark forest” or “dark place,” where a very land or tree can be evil? (Examples: Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Pilgrim’s Progress.)
3. Biblically and in reality, can a place originate evil? If not, how do we see it? (Romans 8.)
4. What may have gone wrong with Mirkwood to make its waters so darkly enchanted and its creatures so foul? What bad “human” influence drew the evils? (Hint: Necromancer.)
5. To you, what could seem creepy about a stream of water that puts you to sleep for days?
6. Read chapter 8, pages 143 (The smell of the roast meats) to the chapter’s end.
7. Unlike the friendlier (yet jolly and teasing) Rivendell Elves, why do the Mirkwood Elves vanish like that, along with their light and their entire party, three times?
8. Giant spiders? Discuss. Giant spiders who poison people to devour? Discuss further.
9. This time there is no Gandalf to save the Dwarves in their sorry state. There is only Bilbo. What are the differences between the two problem solutions? If we were to allegorize this, we could think that it’s endorsing man-centeredness — wizards and magical heroes can’t help us; we need to save ourselves by quick wit and thinking. Is that what you get out of Bilbo’s acts of heroism here? Why does Bilbo act more heroically?
10. Do you think Bilbo’s singing mockery of the spiders make the scene less grotesque?
11. Some of them even got up and bowed right to the ground before him, though they fell over with the effort. … Knowing the truth about the vanishing did not lessen their opinion of Bilbo at all; for they saw that he had some wits, as well as luck and a magic ring — and all three are useful possessions. In fact they praised him so much that Bilbo began to feel there really was something of a bold adventurer about himself after all, though he would have felt a lot bolder still, if there had been anything to eat. (page 156) What are the risks of Bilbo thinking this about himself? What are the advantages? What would you think if you were a Dwarf, finding out that Bilbo had done most of this with a magic ring’s help?
12. Why do the Elves, if they are Good People (page 157), take the good Dwarves hostage?

Photo by Kimberly Butler 2005
From Neil Gaiman’s website

I’ve been quoted as saying my grandkids are cuter and smarter than yours. The fact that I’m biased doesn’t mean it’s not true. But since I’m a grandmother, and everyone knows what grannies are like, people aren’t usually offended when confronted with a statement like that. In fact, when the hearers are grandparents too, they smile indulgently and nod, thinking, “Of course she thinks that. But I happen to know mine are far superior.”

Sometimes it’s impossible to be completely objective. But being biased doesn’t necessarily mean we’re wrong; having an intimacy with the subject can give us a deeper understanding and appreciation than someone with little familiarity with it.

Take, for example, Neil Gaiman sharing his thoughts about reading.

Having earned his living at writing for three decades, Gaiman is not an objective observer. As the recipient of numerous international awards—the Newbery and Carnegie Medals, four Hugos, two Nebulas, one World Fantasy, four Bram Stokers, and six Locus Awards, for an incomplete list—it’s fair to assume he enjoys a greater intimacy with books than your average man on the street. Hailed as being one of the creators of modern comics, he’s a prolific author of a variety of fiction and nonfiction prose, poetry, song lyrics, screenplays and dramas, and highly acclaimed journalistic accomplishments. This all puts him in the category of people who know – and especially, people who care – about reading, writing, and books.

Biased or not, when he speaks on the subject, the rest of us would do well to pay attention. And speak he did, on October 14 this year at a lecture for The Reading Agency in London, UK.

As the British national newspaper The Guardian reports, Gaiman has some good stuff to say. I’ll step aside and let you read it.

Last week, in the comments of my post, a debate arose concerning theistic vs. atheistic as being analogous to morality vs. amorality. Notleia kicked it off with the following comment:

And I have to disagree with amorality being a type of morality. That’s a little like saying that atheism is a kind of religion. (Clarification: atheism is not a religion.)

I mostly watched that side of the discussion unfold, evaluating my thoughts on the matter. A realization hit me and I wrote a response. By the time I finished, I had a full blog post, so decided save it for this week.

I agree that atheism is not a religion, in any organized sense like Christianity or Taoism. It is, however, a belief system for those who hold to it. They hold to a belief that God doesn’t exist. While it is in the negative, it still puts forth a truth proposition: no matter how long man looks, he will never find proof positive that God exists. They will base this belief upon different evidences they believe point to it, which they feel are compelling.

I don’t think the theistic equivalent of amorality is atheist, but agnostic.

Amorality says there are no morals, because I cannot know whether a value is good or bad, right or wrong for myself, much less anyone else. Agnosticism says we cannot currently know whether God exists or not. The antithesis of belief isn’t unbelief, but “I don’t know.”

The truth is there is some agnosticism in all of us. That is, in human knowledge and logic, we cannot prove with 100% certainty that X or not X is true. Human knowledge is incomplete. Every philosophy or theology devised by man breaks down at some point. Every argument for or against the existence of God contains logical holes.

While those arguments may carry us part way toward knowing, it is always a degree of probability. There is always the possibility we are wrong, understood wrong, misinterpreted, don’t have all the relevant data. Because we are not God, because we are limited humans, we can never know anything with 100% degree of certainty.

But practically we have to live one way or the other. I can say in the end I don’t know with my human knowledge that God exists without a doubt, but it is by faith that Christ is who He claims to be, that I leap over that doubt and live believing that He does exist. Another agnostic, however, takes the bet by faith that Jesus and the testimony in Scripture is wrong, that God doesn’t exist, because he lives his life as if God doesn’t exist.

Those who claim the label of agnostic are so in theory, but practically are atheist.

How we live our lives doesn’t allow us the luxury of sitting on the fence. It forces us to live one way or the other using a step of faith in who or what we will believe or not believe in.

Likewise, if I were to break into a house of someone who claims to believe in a form of amoralism, steal their stuff and kill their kids, I’ll bet that person would suddenly find morals that I should be living by.

You can theorize on the fence, but you can’t live there.

That’s what I’m getting at with fiction. The characters are living lives, making choices. The consequences or lack of them generally create a moral order in that world no matter whether the author espouses a morality or doesn’t believe one exists. The story will still communicate a morality that readers pick up on and see in the story, consciously or unconsciously.

Amorality and agnosticism are cognitive realities, but not living realities. Belief one lives by always requires an element of faith, whether by choice or by default.

Who or what does your life show you are placing or not placing your faith in?

On November 22, fifty years ago, C. S. Lewis passed away. While we at Spec Faith certainly have never ignored this great Christian thinker, apologist, and speculative writer, it still seems appropriate to focus on him this month as a tribute. The thing is, the best tribute I can envision is to give his words a platform.

I’ve chosen a portion from his book Miracles, which might seem surprising. However, in this excerpt, Lewis divulges what he believes about myth, or more accurately, what he believes about Jesus.

Confused? See, this is why I need Lewis’s words to stand on their own. He says it so much better than I ever could.

This passage comes from the chapter “The Grand Miracle,” in which he states, “The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation.” He describes how God coming down only to ascend is perfectly shown in nature, and the likeness of the two is a unifying principle to give validity to the Incarnation.

He then raises the question that perhaps the Incarnation fits too perfectly into this nature cycle–that some might think it is merely the creation of one more nature religion with a “corn king” who dies and revives year after year. And then this excerpt:

There is, however, one hypothesis which, if accepted makes everything easy and coherent. The Christians are not claiming that simply “God” was incarnate in Jesus. They are claiming that the one true God is He whom the Jews worshipped as Jahweh, and that it is He who has descended. Now the double character of Jahweh is this. On the one hand He is the God of Nature, her glad Creator. It is He who sends rain into the furrows till the valleys stand so thick with corn that they laugh and sing. The trees of the wood rejoice before Him and His voice causes the wild deer to bring forth their young. He is the God of wheat and wine and oil. In that respect He is constantly doing all the things that Nature Gods do: He is Bacchus, Venus, Ceres all rolled into one. There is no trace in Judaism of the idea found in some pessimistic and Pantheistic religions that Nature is some kind of illusion or disaster, that finite existence is in itself an evil and that the cure lies in the relapse of all things into God. Compared with such anti-natural conceptions Jahweh might almost be mistaken for a Nature-God.

On the other hand, Jahweh is clearly not a Nature-God. He does not die and come to life each year as a true Corn-king should. He may give wine and fertility, but must not be worshipped with Bacchanalian or aphrodisiac rites. He is not the soul of Nature nor of any part of Nature. He inhabits eternity: He dwells in the high and holy place: heaven is His throne, not His vehicle, earth is His footstool, not His vesture. One day He will dismantle both and make a new heaven and earth. He is not to be identified even with the “divine spark” in man. He is “God and not man”: His thoughts are not our thoughts: all our righteousness is filthy rags. His appearance to Ezekiel is attended with imagery that does not borrow from Nature but (it is a mystery too seldom noticed) from those machines which men were to make centuries after Ezekiel’s death. The prophet saw something suspiciously like a dynamo.

Jahweh is neither the soul of Nature nor her enemy. She is neither His body nor a declension and falling away from Him. She is His creature. He is not a nature-God, but the God of Nature–her inventor, maker, owner, and controller (pp 114-115).

As a refresher, here’s the imagery not borrowed from Nature which Lewis referred to:

Then I looked, and behold, four wheels beside the cherubim, one wheel beside each cherub; and the appearance of the wheels was like the gleam of a Tarshish stone. As for their appearance, all four of them had the same likeness, as if one wheel were within another wheel. When they moved, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went; but they followed in the direction which they faced, without turning as they went. Their whole body, their backs, their hands, their wings and the wheels were full of eyes all around, the wheels belonging to all four of them. The wheels were called in my hearing, the whirling wheels. (Ezekiel 10:9-13)

But what does all this have to do with Lewis’s belief about myth? From Miracles again:

Now this brings us to the oddest thing about Christianity. In a sense the view which I have just described is actually true. From a certain point of view Christ is “the same sort of thing” as Adonis or Osiris (always, of course, waiving the fact that they lived nobody knows where or when, while He was executed by a Roman magistrate we know in a year which can be roughly dated) [p 113] . . . Now if there is such a God and if He descends to rise again, then we can understand why Christ is at once so like the Corn-King and so silent about him. He is like the Corn-King because the Corn-King is a portrait of Him. The Corn-King is derived (through human imagination) from the facts of Nature, and the facts of nature from her Creator; the Death and Re-birth pattern is in her because it was first in Him (p 115).

In summation, Lewis believes myth, through the agency of man’s imagination, sprang from God by way of Creation which mirrors Him.

Stories, we can conclude, may falsify the true image of God because they are constructs of human imagination, and yet they retain shadows of reality, some with more clarity than others, and Lewis’s, I would suggest, most of all.

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations…there are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations–these are mortal, and their life is to our as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

— C.S. Lewis

Such is Ender Wiggin, perhaps the most complex child creature in all of literature. While central to Orson Scott Card’s beloved book, Ender’s Game, one can’t help but feel afraid of him, of what’s brewing underneath, of the genetic disposition to be either like his sister “Valentine,” or the cold, sociopathic brother, Peter (which means “rock”). After their Platonic trichotomy is less-than-subtly introduced, one isn’t sure which way his psyche will turn as it traverses the dangerous environment of a futuristic battle school which seeks to capitalize on both sides of his dual nature. In one glimpse we see goodness, in the next, goodness spoiled.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The story. Without spoiling the film or book, I can summarize the plot by saying that it is set in the far, technological future – post-war, post-many-things. Earth has been attacked by an alien race and survived, but has spent the remaining years preparing for another expected clash. Earth’s military has embraced children as the fastest learners and thinkers and sought them out. As a result, the prodigious Ender Wiggin (a “third” in a world of two children households) finds himself quickly moving up the military ladder to the most elite of battle schools.

That’s where I’ll stop, except to say that the technology that made Ender’s Game so appealing when it was first published in 1985 got little screen time but also deserves a mention – that’s probably because it now exists. In 85, not only was my mom a trolling English tutor in the cyberworld, but my parents were already attending moots with forum buddies that they met on “Quantum Link” – the version then of what the internet is now. We had so much trouble explaining to people- especially my grandparents – how we were able to talk to people through our computer that we just gave up.

In Card’s Game, social internet sites like Facebook and online rumors were both major players and major stunners in 1985. Valentine had a screen name of “Demosthenes” and Peter was “Locke” and together they infiltrated culture and begin to bend it in sinister fashion. Valentine’s heart is compromised, and Peter just becomes more and more wicked and chilling and Big-Brother-based-in-your-backyard-garage-freaky as the story progresses. Both those screen names show up in nearly every internet forum I visit to this day.

Also, the characters accessed these digital worlds via slim, light, sleek pads (which Asa Butterfield does use from his battle school bunk). In 85, we were still wearing digital watches and thought Casios were awesome and painted with pixels on Tandys and what was then called an “Apple” computer. So, needless to say while Card’s book was eerily prescient, even if you know that, there’s still just a momentary flicker in your brain while Ender plays an interactive video game (Oh yeah! Those didn’t exist either!) from a sleek iPad, because you forget that he did that twenty years before we had iPads.

My best guess as to why the very scintillating subplot involving Peter and Valentine was left out is that it is no longer science fiction but science fact and that would hardly make a film feel cutting edge, now would it?

So that leaves us with Ender. In the book, the rest of his story is purely psychological and thick on subtext. Perhaps this is why I seriously doubted filmmakers could adequately tell his story. Fifteen minutes in, I had completely changed my mind.

To start, Asa Butterfield was born to play Ender Wiggin. Audiences generally want children to play horrific devils or innocent lambs. Historically, literature hasn’t allowed them to be truly complex beings. We have seen terrible children redeemed and good children go bad, but with Ender Wiggin, Orson Scott Card broke all the rules. I cheered when I learned Asa Butterfield had been cast to play this role and fondly remembered the year it was slated to be Hayley Joel Osment, a choice which was intriguing but still felt imperfect. My romantic self now believes Ender was Asa – it was always supposed to be Asa. Having seen him play a chilling young Mordred on BBC’s Merlin, I remember wondering how he could ever be anything but blue-eyed bad seed material. Then Scorcese’s Hugo came along and he displayed a warm, beautiful vulnerability with those same blue eyes I had been sure could only exude negative temperatures. When the news came out that he had been snagged for Ender, it got my attention to say the least. Actually, I sort of ran around the room screaming.

I’m happy to say I wasn’t disappointed.

So where do I start? Remember how Hayley Joel Osment’s voice cracked throughout Secondhand Lions and you felt a little sorry for him? Like you wished for his sake that they could have done the film just a little after he’d gotten through all that? Yeah, that doesn’t happen. Well, the voice cracking does, but with each crack in Asa Butterfield’s growing voice combined with those seemingly cold, glaring eyes, this over-arching whisper forms in your ear (in a way barred to you when simply reading the book) that Ender Wiggin – in all his extraordinary genius and strategic cunning and seething temperament — is a child. It works. It works painfully well.

Add to that a sparkling performance from Abigail Breslin as Valentine (trust me, I’m eating crow right now because I thought the decision to cast her was terrible and, as it is, she’s just right). In the few moments she’s on screen with Ender and the oldest Wiggin, Peter (Jimmy Pinchak), she (and Pinchak) plays Ender’s “shadow” perfectly. The chemistry between these three is given very little screen time, but it was essential to understanding the precipice on which Ender’s being sways (always sways), and – thank goodness – they nail it. They nail it so beautifully that this was the moment that I let go of everything and decided the filmmakers could be trusted. After that, Asa’s brilliant eyes do the rest – like the pools between the worlds they shift between these two sides of himself without a word.

And suddenly, somewhere in the film, you realize you’ve been viewing multiple wars at once. Card’s story – and his hero – are so much more than they at first appear – and in midst of the battle, one can almost hear an Older Voice: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world …”

As for the rest of the cast, it is one of the most richly diverse I’ve seen since Hogwarts. Nonzo Onozie (who is this guy?) is fantastic as the Battle School drill sergeant, with a bark on his lips and a twinkle in his eye. Harrison Ford is spot on as Ender’s mentor, Hiram Graff. Audiences will think what they’re supposed to think of him when they’re supposed to think it. Though he’s always good, Ben Kingsley’s appearance was welcome but felt late in the game, and a little flat. His introductory scene seemed like a thing which probably looked better in a storyboard but failed on the actual studio floor. My instincts kept wanting to fix it. Viola Davis, however, is perfection in her protective role as a counselor to the young recruits and pulls off considerably more depth than Ford or Kingsley. Ender’s band of misfits is deftly cast – particularly Aramis Knight as Bean. Hailee Steinfeld does the best she can with Petra who is given little time to really develop as a character, and sadly is largely forgettable. Moises Arias shines much more immediately and brightly as the malevolent Bonzo. On seeing him, I felt like Card’s character had walked right off the page. His altercations with Ender faced some of the biggest changes in the film, but when you see them, you’ll understand why they were necessary. I kept waiting for the moment when I was going to have to slap my hand over my 9-year-old daughter’s eyes and it didn’t come.

After that, omissions were more common than actual changes. The remainder of the film was extremely faithful to Card’s original. The story jumps in at 0 and doesn’t end until you’re given a taste of the next book, Speaker For the Dead (one can only hope!). Fans should be happy to know that the sacred and hotly anticipated battle training was so well done I could not figure out how on earth they pulled it off. And yes, Orson Scott Card, I can see the Quidditch/Potter connection having now seen Ender on film, but I still don’t think Rowling completely stole Harry Potter from you so let it go, okay?

Finally, (EG fans who have read the book will know what I mean when I say this) when “the moment” comes, the film, without any words, succinctly and poetically delivers the punchline. Ender falls from the precipice. And “zing”! It’s a moment that caught me up in both emotion and admiration at the same time.

Another notable achievement is a soundtrack that is digitally driven at its outer edge while prominently featuring a very human sounding central acoustic violin as its voice. This was brilliant for many reasons – the metaphorical juxtaposition of carefully engineered and authentic sounds, the mathematically crafted space shared between old and new, and (most importantly) such sheer gorgeousness that I purchased it before our car made it home.

One last thing. This film did not slow down to let you catch up. Ever. And its pace felt very decisive – as if it was saying upfront that it was okay with losing a few audience members for the sake of telling a more complex story true to the book.

To whomever made this decision: THANK YOU.

On that note, since my husband and I had both read the book, I did ask our friends with us what they thought of the film having gone into it cold turkey. The majority were completely drawn in and loved it while a couple admittedly got confused early on and just enjoyed the remainder of the film as spectacle. While I was sorry to hear that, for once, it seemed like filmmakers chose to appeal to the fanbase that has adored this book and story for years – it made me feel like someone in Hollywood was finally getting it.

For those with family, my nine-year-old daughter remained absolutely glued to the screen the entire time and she understood every minute of it. Her eyes, by the way, are a lot like Asa Butterfield’s. In case anyone wonders, the more adult themes of the book (there’s no hanging out in the bunkrooms naked) had been toned down just enough to allow her entrance into a fictional world which treated the child characters (and therefore, herself) with a new respect and expectation I’ve not really seen before. She loved it. I guess that other kid adventure story that came out in 1985 isn’t actually “good enough” for her.

I have to agree.